2 Foundations Create National Panel on Teaching

Two foundations with strong track records in supporting education
reform last week announced a new national commission for improving
teaching and teacher development.

The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future is chaired
by Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. of North Carolina. Its 26 members include
officials from higher education, business, labor, and state government,
as well as teachers and administrators.

The two foundations--the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie
Corporation of New York--contributed $1.2 million and $400,000,
respectively, to underwrite the panel's work.

The commission began its work last week with a full-day conference
in New York City, the first in a series of meetings to be held over the
next 18 months. By fall 1996, the panel expects to publish a report on
improving teaching and teacher development.

"So much is happening in the field, but it's really time to start
pulling it all together," said Linda Darling-Hammond, a professor of
education at Teachers College, Columbia University, who is the panel's
executive director.

A new report by Ms. Darling-Hammond on the status of teaching in the
United States was the basis for the group's first discussions. The
study found that many newly hired teachers are underprepared in
teaching theory and subject matter--and that the lack of training is
most obvious in urban schools.

Those piecemeal teaching reforms have not been linked across the
stages of a teacher's career, the report also notes.

The panel will explore ways of doing that and, in the process, try
to convince policymakers and the public that better preparation of
teachers is critical to lasting success in education reform.

"The commission will draw from the best ideas and models that have
been created around the country to develop a blueprint for recruiting,
training, and supporting excellent teachers," David Hamburg, the
president of the Carnegie Corporation, said in a statement last
week.

The commission is expected to generate concrete ideas, "not a
laundry list of things to do," Ms. Darling-Hammond said.

It is expected to:

Make a case for teacher development as the key to improving
schools;

Suggest ways to recruit, prepare, induct, and support teachers
that will meet new standards and reflect new knowledge about teaching
and learning;

Develop an agenda for connecting reforms in teacher education,
licensing, certification, and accreditation with local, state, and
federal school reforms; and

Prepare a strategy for enlisting policymakers and others in
efforts to improve teaching.

Panel members pointed to the creation of the National Board for
Professional Teaching Standards--a private effort to certify expert
teachers--as an inspiration for their work. (See Education Week,
11/09/94.)

That board was established in 1987, following recommendations by a
task force convened by the Carnegie Corporation. That panel suggested
that rigorous standards for teaching would result in greater
professionalism.

The teaching commission draws on some of the forces that shaped the
earlier effort. Governor Hunt is also the chairman of the
teaching-standards board. James Kelly, the standards board's president,
is a commission member.

'The Timing Is Right'

"We're trying to bring wider public awareness to these
developments," said Arthur Wise, the president of the National Council
for Accreditation of Teacher Education.

A projected boom in teacher hiring over the next decade provides a
dramatic backdrop for the commission's efforts.

The "graying" of the teacher workforce will require districts to
hire some 200,000 teachers a year in the near future, according to Ms.
Darling-Hammond's study.

Ms. Darling-Hammond, a critic of some alternative-certification
programs, said urban and poor rural school systems are the most likely
to hire underprepared teachers. (See Education Week, 11/09/94.)

"The timing is right for this work, and the commission is ready to
focus on the issues where it really counts," she said.

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